 | East Hartford Rotary Club High Gear Volume 79 | Issue 24 / January 10, 2024 |
With the return of “reasonable” January weather, 14 of us gathered in the Community Room at Goodwin University plus Jim Watts on Zoom. It was especially heartening to welcome Hope and Dan Firestone who were able to set aside time for this meeting before a trip to Boston. We also welcomed Guy Labella’s guest, Charles McGinnis, Goodwin University’s Senior Director of Continuing Education. Charles intends to join our club under the umbrella of Goodwin’s Corporate Membership.
President Bob rang our club’s official bell at noon and promptly led us in the pledge. Marc gave an inspiring invocation with an emphasis on the effectiveness of Rotarians’ activities benefiting those they will never meet. This was followed by a recitation of the Four-Way Test. At this point we broke for lunch, which consisted of pizza, three types of grinders—chicken parmesan, combo and tuna-- plus a large salad.
Bob brought us to order again at 12:25.
Caring Moments
- Ruth continues her recovery but is avoiding crowds – imagine us being a “crowd.” We do know Covid is out and about wreaking havoc again this winter; it was good to have our Evergreen Crossing members able to join us in person again.
- We missed Ceil who was involved with other family mourning the passing of her aunt.
- Neal mentioned Rosemary continues to recover from her December fall and is also celebrating a clean bill of health from a doctor’s visit today.
Anwar introduced today’s speaker, coming to us via Zoom. Maya Dutta is an environmental advocate working to promote access to nature and ecological restoration in urban areas. Recounting the success of Miyawaki forests in the Boston area and showing some impressive photos and charts, Maya persuaded us that towns such as East Hartford could create small pocket forests, about 1000 square feet, on existing parklands as well as schools and hospital grounds, in a reasonably short amount of time. Maya was careful to assure us that this is not a replacement for conserving intact trees and forests, but a new effort to shift from a single focus on carbon emissions to biodiversity.
Once again, we are grateful to Anwar for bringing us a significant, relevant program. Remember the environment has been added as a seventh area of focus for The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International.
Per our club’s constitutional documents, we publish here again the slate of officers and directors for Rotary year 2024-2025.
Proposed Slate of Officers for 2023-2025
- President, Rob Rosa
- President-elect TBD
- Immediate Past President, Bob Buettner
- Secretary, Sue Klock
- Treasurer, George Schoen
- Assistant Treasurer/Director, Marc Glass
- Neal Cunningham, Director
- Anwar Hossain, Director
- Ray Maselek, Director
- Bill Saunders, Director
- Jack Sayre, Director
- Jim Watts, Director
The election will be held during the first regular club meeting in February.
Sue Klock has been tasked with creating an updated bifold for our club to distribute at community events. We need new pictures showing our recent service projects. If you have any which might be useful, please attach to an email indicating photo(s) are for club’s brochure, and send to suehklock@gmail.com.
Bob rang the bell to conclude the meeting about 1 PM.
Submitted by Sue Klock, High Gear writer for January.
Editor's apologies for publishing so late :-(